Happy Face / Frowny Face - July Edition

It’s the last Friday in July so it’s time for my month’s-end review of what’s been hot and what’s been oh so awful in the world. I have a feeling at least one of my choices might be surprising to a lot of people. So kick back, relax and let’s get Happy / Frowny!


Happy Face
Hot Ghetto Mess – The controversy surrounding this show has been huge, but after seeing the Charlie Murphy hosted program the other night on BET I have to say most of the rhetoric involving boycotting the show is not only completely unfounded, but the reasoning behind their want to boycott the show seems to be right in line with the actual subject matter of the program, leading me to believe most of Hot Ghetto Mess’ critics have never actually seen the show. Charlie Murphy does a great job as host and the man on the street segments are especially damning when it comes to exposing the lack of knowledge most people have. Really simple questions like “Who is Barak Obama,” “How many black people are Supreme Court Justices,” and “What does the NAACP stand for,” were answered incorrectly by a surprisingly large number of people, both black and white. The show’s name has officially been changed from Hot Ghetto Mess – We Got To Do Better to simply We Got To Do Better, and it’s most definitely worth your time. Ironically, despite the name change the lone criticism I have of the show is its title, it should be We Have To Do Better, but hey, maybe once people are actually doing better more folks will pick up on that.

HBO – July was a fantastic month for the network that's not TV, it’s HBO, as Entourage is clicking on all cylinders and Flight of the Conchords is reaching new levels of musical hilarity (“him and you / in the nude / with the food / if that’s what you’re into”). If ever there was a time HBO could afford to have The Sopranos go off the air it’s now. Entourage is clearly the network’s flagship program and the show's seven Emmy nominations are all well deserved (even if they did put Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon up for the same award). Next year the folks at the Emmys may have to create a special category for Flight of the Conchords who might be the most interesting thing to happen to music in years.

Transformers The Movie – OK, OK, it’s not the original, which holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of folks my age, myself included, but the new edition of the Transformers movie is still pretty dang good. The teenage boy tries to be a little too Seth Cohen at the start (proving that The O.C. character isn’t that easy to play), but once Megan Fox comes on the screen (so hot) and the Transformers start fighting, everything is right with the film. I really loved the fact that the last hour plus was a giant fight scene. Hey, that’s what I paid to see, and even though Thundercracker didn’t make an appearance it was still a blast (no pun intended).


Frowny Face
Exploding Sidewalks – Man, exploding sidewalks can be inconvenient. That was the general consensus in the tri-state area once we all figured out it wasn’t some terrorist plot that left the world’s largest pothole near Grand Central Station in Manhattan. As soon as we heard it wasn’t Osama and most everyone was fine we were like “damn that’s gonna mess up my commute.” We went from concerned to self-centered faster than Jeff Gordon goes zero to sixty. I was one of the many folks guilty of this as I was heading into the city for a ballgame the next day, but the subway lines were back to stopping at GCS by the time I needed them to. Dang exploding sidewalks almost ruining my day!

Rehab as a PR Tool – Does anyone think Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and the rest of the pop princesses that enter rehab are actually doing anything rehab related while they’re there? Lohan exits rehab, coincidentally with just enough time to promote her new movie (funny thing about that), and is instantly seen partying it up while Britney came out acting even crazier than when she went in according to the hype surrounding her OK Magazine interview. Message to Hollywood, some people actually need to be in rehab. Let’s not have some of the top facilities in the country filled up with folks who either a) don’t really need it, or b) aren’t really there to rehab.